For the first time since Nov. 17, 2017, Kevin Wallace will coach a varsity football game at El Donaldson Stadium.

In 22 seasons as the Purples’ head coach, he won 254 games and five state championships. He had an .861 winning percentage, 19 district titles, 10 regional titles and a total of 60 playoff wins. He was an assistant for two years as well and, in 1994, the team finished as the Class 3A state runner-up before winning it all the next year.

He’s using one word to describe the feeling he’s expecting when his new team – St. Xavier – comes to Bowling Green on Friday: Awkward.

“I’m rather preoccupied with trying to see if we can improve our play. I’m sure that when we roll in there it will be a little different, it’ll be an awkward situation, but you stay so busy during the week trying to operate a football program and trying to prepare a team that I really haven’t let my mind wander an awful lot,” Wallace said in a phone interview with the Daily News.

It won’t be the first time he’s faced his former team. Bowling Green beat St. Xavier 24-21 in overtime last year in Louisville. The two teams have met 16 times, including each of the last eight seasons. The Purples have gone 6-2 during that stretch, but the Tigers lead the all-time series 10-6.

His focus is getting his team back on track this Friday. St. Xavier suffered a 51-14 loss to Male, the No. 2 team in the Class 6A AP poll, in the third week of the season and has struggled with turnovers the last few weeks. St. Xavier went 2-1 during that stretch, including a 23-0 win at Central last week, but Wallace doesn’t expect similar outcomes if it’s not cleaned up Friday night.

“There’s one glaring area that we’re trying to improve on,” Wallace said. “We’ve turned the ball over 10 times in the last three games and if we continue that process we’re going to get embarrassed the next two weeks.”

Bowling Green has rolled through its last three games after dropping the season opener to Father Ryan (Tenn.) 24-21 in the Rafferty’s Bowl at Western Kentucky’s Houchens-Smith Stadium. The Purples have outscored opponents in the stretch 154-14, shutting out their last two opponents.

Bowling Green has picked off opposing quarterbacks seven times in those two shutouts. DeVito Tisdale, who recently cut his list of potential colleges to Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Texas A&M, has four of those. He also recovered a fumble for a touchdown in last week’s 56-0 win against Pleasure Ridge Park.

“We need to continue to communicate better in the secondary, get ourselves lined up properly. That was part of our battle there in those first couple of games. We had some blown assignments in coverage,” Bowling Green coach Mark Spader said. “As long as we clearly communicate and get lined up – coach Wallace is a big formation guy and he’s constantly trying to outflank your defense.”

St. Xavier quarterback Douglas Bodhaine has thrown for 674 yards and six touchdowns on 40-of-68 passing this season. Logan Davis has rushed for 279 yards and six touchdowns on 57 attempts.

Conner Cooper and Max Payne have quarterbacked the Purples’ offense. Cooper has thrown for 380 yards and six touchdowns on 14-of-23 passing and Payne has thrown for 217 yards and four touchdowns on 17-of-30 passing. Evan Spader has carried the ball 36 times, recording 223 yards and a touchdown, while Javeius Bunton has run 13 times for 217 yards and two touchdowns.

For Mark Spader, the opportunity to be Bowling Green’s head coach might not have come about had it not been for Wallace.

“Back in 2004, he gave me an opportunity to come over here and coach. I had begun my career here and then went over to county schools for 10 years,” Spader said. “In ’04, he extended an offer for me to join his staff so, as far as my position here right now, I owe him quite a bit.”

While the two spent several years coaching together and competing against each other in the offseason to prepare for the season, they don’t believe Friday’s game will come down to either of them outcoaching the other. They believe it’ll be about execution after the two teams kick off.

“I think that players win games and you hope that you’ve prepared them the best and that you help put them in a position to make plays,” Wallace said. “They’re really well-coached and I’d be really disappointed if they weren’t. All those guys were with me for a long period of time and I had complete confidence in them then and that hasn’t changed just because I left.”

Like Wallace with his St. Xavier team, Mark Spader and Bowling Green are trying to continue to improve each week to prepare for district play and the postseason. Quality competition continues next week for the Purples as they travel to Corbin before opening Class 5A, District 2 play at South Warren. But right now, the focus is on the 6:30 p.m. kickoff against the Tigers.

“We’re really selling ourselves on a week at a time here,” Mark Spader said. “We’ve got a countdown clock in our locker room that has St. Xavier on it and that’s all we’re talking about and that’s all we’re focused on.”{&end}